Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant sought to vacate the conviction because he pled guilty without being informed of the mens rea element announced in Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019). Defendant did not challenge the omission of this element in the district court or on direct appeal, his claim is procedurally defaulted, such that the district court may not consider the merits of the claim unless Defendant can overcome the default by showing (1) cause for not raising the error sooner; and (2) prejudice, which means a reasonable probability that Defendant would not have pled guilty had he been properly informed of the elements of the offense   The district court summarily denied the motion without supplementing the record, holding an evidentiary hearing, or making factual findings.  The court held that the district court’s summary denial was erroneous. The court wrote that the district court erred by applying plain-error analysis. Rejecting the Government’s specific arguments, the court held (1) neither the fact that Defendant was sentenced to more than one year in prison nor his acknowledgment at his sentencing hearing that he had been “convicted of felonies,” is conclusive evidence that he would have pled guilty even if he were informed of all of the elements of the offense; and (2) the potential loss of an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction is not so great that it alone conclusively establishes that Defendant would have pled guilty to the felon-in-possession count even if he were properly informed of the elements of the offense. View "USA V. JUSTIN WERLE" on Justia Law

This appeal arose from a class action filed under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 by individuals who were incarcerated in private immigration detention facilities owned and operated by a for-profit corporation, CoreCivic, Inc. These individuals were detained solely due to their immigration status alleged that the overseers of their private detention facilities forced them to perform labor against their will and without compensation. The inquiry on appeal concerns only whether the district court properly certified three classes of detainees.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order certifying three classes in an action. The court held that the district court properly exercised its discretion in certifying a California Labor Law Class, a California Forced Labor Class, and a National Forced Labor Class. The court held that, as to the California Forced Labor Class, Plaintiffs submitted sufficient proof of a class-wide policy of forced labor to establish commonality. Plaintiff established predominance because the claims of the class members all depended on common questions of law and fact. The court agreed with the district court that narrowing the California Forced Labor Class based on the California TVPA’s statute of limitations was not required at the class certification stage.   The court held that, as to the National Forced Labor Class, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Plaintiffs presented significant proof of a class-wide policy of forced labor. As to the California Labor Law Class, the court held that Plaintiffs established that damages were capable of measurement on a class-wide basis. View "SYLVESTER OWINO V. CORECIVIC, INC." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant’s original life sentence in 1998. Following the Supreme Court’s decisions in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012) (holding that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders), and Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190 (2016) (holding that Miller’s rule applied retroactively on collateral review), Defendant was resentenced to LWOP in 2016. Defendant argued relying on the now-vacated en banc decision, Briones I, that the resentencing record does not reflect that the district court meaningfully engaged in Miller’s central inquiry, namely, identifying those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility. The Ninth Circuit wrote that Jones made altogether clear that—irrespective of any seemingly contrary language in Miller or Montgomery— permanent incorrigibility is not an eligibility criterion for juvenile LWOP. The court held that Defendant waived his argument that a requirement of meaningful engagement with Miller’s central inquiry comes from this court’s cases interpreting the federal sentencing statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 3553, as to which Jones is irrelevant. The court rejected Defendant’s argument that Briones II vacated his LWOP sentence for a second, independent reason—namely, that the district court may not have understood it was allowed to meaningfully consider evidence of his post-conviction rehabilitation. The court held that Defendant waived his as-applied challenge to the substantive proportionality of his sentence, and wrote that all relevant factors militate against exercising discretion to consider the merits of Defendant’s otherwise waived substantive disproportionality arguments. View "USA V. RILEY BRIONES, JR." on Justia Law

Petitioner was found guilty of kidnapping and first-degree felony murder and sentenced to death. On direct appeal, Petitioner argued that his 1975 California conviction could not be used as an aggravating circumstance under section 13–703(F)(1) of the later-revised Arizona Revised Statutes. He also argued that the use of section 13–703(F)(1) violated his Eighth Amendment rights (this is referred to as the “Eighth Amendment claim”). The Arizona Supreme Court rejected these claims and affirmed Petitioner’s conviction and sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari. However, in light of the Supreme Court’s March 2012 opinion in Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), the district court allowed Petitioner to file a motion for reconsideration of its prior dismissal of his ineffective assistance of sentencing counsel claim as procedurally barred. The district court denied the motion for reconsideration.   The Ninth Circuit denied Petitioner’s motion to seek leave to file a second or successive habeas motion. The court held that Petitioner failed to make a prima facie showing that his proposed petition meets the criteria set forth in 28 U.S.C. Section 2244(b)(2)(B). The court reasoned that because Sawyer provides no equitable exception to Section 2244(b)(2)(B)’s requirements, and because Petitioner does not assert that his first claim otherwise meets those requirements, Petitioner’s first claim does not make a prima facie showing that it meets the requirements for an exception to the bar on second or successive petitions. Finally, Petitioner failed to make a prima facie showing in support of his freestanding actual innocence claim. View "FRANK ATWOOD V. DAVID SHINN" on Justia Law

Plaintiff alleged excessive force after being shot by a correctional officer during an incident that occurred while Plaintiff was incarcerated at California’s San Quentin State Prison. Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s third amended complaint against Defendant Clawson for failure to state a claim and because Plaintiff had not exhausted administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) before he filed his original complaint. The district court agreed that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his claim against Defendant at the time he filed his original complaint and dismissed the third amended complaint for lack of exhaustion under the PLRA.   The Ninth Circuit held that the district court erred and reversed the district court’s dismissal.  The court clarified the underlying principle in Jackson v. Fong, 870 F.3d 928 (9th Cir. 2017). Jackson made clear that the PLRA does not supplant or modify Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15. Rule 15 allows plaintiffs, regardless of their incarceration status, to supplement pleadings with leave of court “even though the original pleading is defective in stating a claim or defense.” A prisoner who has fully complied with the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement need not file an entirely new federal case simply because he had not exhausted when he filed his original federal complaint. The parties agreed that Plaintiff had fully exhausted by the time he filed his third amended complaint, which the district court deemed the “operative complaint.” Plaintiff’s operative third amended complaint was the only relevant pleading for purposes of the PLRA exhaustion analysis. View "SHIKEB SADDOZAI V. RON DAVIS" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of distributing and receiving child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 2252A. He challenged the sentences imposed. The Ninth Circuit held that the district court did not err in applying the enhancement and did not err in assessing a fine of $5,000 for each of Defendants two counts of conviction.   The court reasoned that to be eligible for a five-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. Section 2G2.2(b)(3)(B), which applies to offenders who distribute child pornography “in exchange for any valuable consideration,” Defendant need not actually receive the valuable consideration.   Further, the court held that the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 3014(a), mandates a $5,000 assessment for each of a defendant’s counts of conviction—not a single assessment per defendant in the case. The court explained that Section 3014(a) works in conjunction with 18 U.S.C. Section 3013, to which Section 3014 is closely related in terms of text, purpose, and statutory structure; and observed that every circuit court has interpreted Section 3013’s assessment on a person “convicted of an offense” to apply separately to each count of conviction rather than to each offender. The panel wrote that the ordinary meaning of Section 3014’s “convicted of an offense” also supports a separate assessment per conviction. View "USA V. DUSTIN RANDALL" on Justia Law

In July 2020, during the heart of the COVID pandemic, Defendant was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Defendant's case went to trial no long after his arrest, when the district court's COVID procedures were still in effect. More specifically, the Northern District of California imposed a restriction stating only "persons who have been authorized by a judge or the Clerk of Court may enter courthouse property." However, the district court judge overseeing Defendant's motion to suppress and trial imposed additional restrictions, disallowing any member of the public from entering the courtroom and instead streamed live audio over the internet. Defendant objected, citing a violation of his right to a public trial. The district court rejected Defendant's challenge, and a jury convicted him.On appeal, the Ninth Circuit vacated Defendant's conviction and reversed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress, holding that the district court’s COVID protocols violated Defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial. The court found that the government presented an overriding interest in limiting the transmission of COVID while holding a criminal trial; however, the court's restriction on video access was not narrowly tailored. The Ninth Circuit noted that other courts around the county were able to allow for video access during the pandemic. View "USA V. JAMES ALLEN, II" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder of an Arizona police officer after a jury trial in 1997 and was sentenced to death by the state court. Petitioner moved in the district court under Rule 60(b)(6) for additional discovery to develop (1) a potential claim under Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), that the prosecution knowingly elicited false testimony; and (2) a potential claim of actual innocence after a witness’s apparent recantation of key guilt-phase testimony. Petitioner relied on Mitchell v. United States, 958 F.3d 775 (9th Cir. 2020), for two propositions.   The Ninth Circuit denied Petitioner’s request for a certificate of appealability (COA) that would allow Petitioner to challenge the district court’s denial of his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6) motion for relief from final judgment. The court agreed with Petitioner that, under Mitchell, the district court had jurisdiction to consider his Rule 60(b)(6) motion for discovery to develop potential claims, and correctly declined to dismiss the motion as a disguised second or successive petition.   Applying the factors set forth in Phelps v. Alameida, 569 F.3d 1120 (9th Cir. 2009), the court found that the holding in Mitchell, which did not disturb the underlying rules governing the discovery that Petitioner sought, did not constitute an extraordinary circumstance justifying relief from final judgment under Rule 60(b)(6). Because no reasonable jurist would disagree with the district court’s decision to deny the Rule 60(b)(6) motion, the court declined to grant Petitioner’s requested COA. View "ERNESTO MARTINEZ V. DAVID SHINN" on Justia Law

Following entry of Defendant’s guilty plea and his two sentencing proceedings, the Supreme Court clarified in Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), that to be a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of Section 922(g)(1), a defendant must know that they belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from possessing a firearm.Defendant argued that the government’s failure to list the knowledge of status element in his indictment should invalidate his conviction. The Ninth Circuit held that Defendant, who had been incarcerated for more than three years for his prior felony convictions and pointed to nothing in the record suggesting that he would have entered a different plea but for the indictment’s deficiency, failed to satisfy the third and fourth prongs of plain error review.Defendant further argued that the district court’s failure to advise him of the knowledge of status element during the plea colloquy rendered his guilty plea unconstitutionally involuntary and unknowing. The court concluded that there was no plain error requiring reversal, where none of Defendant’s confusion was related to the elements of the Section 922(g)(1) charge, the court already determined in a prior memorandum disposition that his plea was constitutionally valid despite any confusion, and the record contains indisputable evidence of prior felony convictions.Finally, the court held that Defendant’s predicate conviction is not sufficient to trigger the enhancement. The court deferred to the government’s concession, declining to decide whether Bautista controls. View "USA V. TYRONE DAVIS" on Justia Law

Petitioner pled guilty one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury and one count of use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. He moved for postconviction relief under Section 2255, arguing that his Section 924(c)(1)(A) conviction and sentence were invalid in light of United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019). The district court denied the petition and Petitioner sought leave to file a second or successive motion for postconviction relief under Section 2255. He, again, claimed that his Section 924(c)(1)(A) conviction and sentence are unlawful under Davis, and he added a claim that under Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817 (2021), his Section 113(a)(6) conviction cannot serve as a predicate crime of violence for his Section 924(c)(1)(A) conviction.   The Ninth Circuit denied Petitioner’s application for leave to file a second or successive Section 2255 motion. The court held Petitioner did not make the necessary prima facie showing under Section 2255(h)(2) with respect to his Davis claim because that claim is not “previously unavailable,” where Petitioner presented that claim to the district court in his first Section 2255 motion, and the district court erroneously held on the merits that Petitioner was not entitled to relief, and he did not appeal that decision. Additionally, Borden does not provide a basis under Section 2255(h)(2) for granting Petitioner’s application for leave to file a second or successive Section 2255 motion because Borden did not announce a new rule of constitutional law. View "WILLIE JONES, SR. V. USA" on Justia Law